“When the world turns its back on you, you turn your back on the world…”

Recently, I’ve been noticing many, many food blogs posting recipes utilizing a certain brand of pre-made “fresh” pastas: nothing like a Foodbuzz promo to bring the best out of the food bloggers. Many came up with very creative recipes using a store-bought, pre-made pasta (a difficult compromise for many hardcore pasta lovers). [In case you were wondering, no, Foodbuzz didn’t send us any Buitoni products, and yes, you do detect a hint of bitterness.] A prize of All-Clad Copper Core pots and pans is a pretty damn good prize to inspire the Sandra Lee in all of us. (An Aside: Speaking of Ms. Sandra Lee, has anyone seen that horrid “Kentucky GRILLED Chicken” commercial? We wonder if she is going to take a bucket of that chicken, open up a bag of arugula, throw on some Seven Seas Italian Dressing, and then craft one of her cleverly-branded “tablescapes” featuring giant papier mâché heads of the Colonel?)

After seeing all these different recipes utilizing store-bought pasta (and upset at having been left-out of this Foodbuzz freebie), I was reminded that the average American still thinks that making homemade pasta isn’t possible, and I was determined to prove them wrong. Although I do understand that there is a time and a place for store-bought stuffed pasta and Semi-Homemade/Sandra Lee nights, I also believe that creating homemade, fresh, stuffed pasta is much, much easier than most people think.

The key is in the stuffing. If you can make a delicious stuffing for ravioli, agnolotti, tortellini, cannelloni or any other shape of stuffed pasta your little heart desires, the hardest part is over. If you don’t have a pasta roller (or a rolling-pin), buy some wonton wrappers and do it that way. The key is that you’ve done it – you made it, the stuffing is fresh and includes zero preservatives. You get to control what goes in the stuffing. Get creative ’cause the possibilities are endless.

Although I did make my own pasta for this dish, the star was the stuffing. It was super simple, quick and very easy to make. We happened to find fresh porcini’s in our local market (a freaking miracle) for about $35 a pound, so we bought two ($8!) and decided to blend those with some rehydrated dried ones and a bit of good old (and too often underappreciated) white button mushrooms. A bit of butter, some fresh parmigiano, garlic, shallots and sage, and you’ve got a fab-u-lous, fresh filling for pasta.

Bottom line, if you haven’t tried making your own stuffed pasta, give it a try. Please. Just try.

Mixed Mushroom & Sage-Stuffed Tortelloni

Ingredients:

1 packet homemade pasta or wonton wrappers

2 x 8oz boxes of mushrooms (button, brown, cremini or a mixture of any type of mushroom)

3 cloves of garlic, finely minced

1 shallot, finely minced

8-10 sage leaves, finely minced

½ cup grated parmigiano reggiano

1 tablespoon of unsalted butter

salt and pepper

For the sauce:

4 tablespoons of unsalted butter

5 sage leaves, julienned

4 tbsp grated parmigiano reggiano

Recipe:

Make your filling by gently sautéing mushrooms, shallot and garlic together in butter until all is soft.

Add sage and cheese and combine well. Kill the fire. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

Mixture should be reasonably dry, i.e. not saucy, so that it doesn’t soak into pasta but sits nicely in it. Allow mixture to cool before beginning next step.

I’m abashed that I received a package of buitoni pasta… too lazy and haven’t posted yet. It was surprisingly good, but yours looks much better! I have a pasta roller and even got the ravioli attachment but have never tried it yet. You have inspired me.

When saw the mushroom & read the “stuffed” the foodbuzz agnolottis were the one I was thinking about:-) they were truely amazing! & u have done an amazing job here too with the flavors!! getting me hungry!

Every time I catch Sandra Lee as I’m flipping through channels, I always think that if she would just give up on the stupid tablescapes, she’d be able to spend time cooking something decent. Who the hell gives a cooking show to someone who can’t cook?

Once the investment in a pasta roller is made for the Kitchen Aid, trust us when we a say that pasta WILL be rolled. It will! Nothing beats the taste of fresh pasta. Of course you guys did it up with your made by hand dough and that filling. Mmmm mmm good.

Sandra Lee wouldn’t bother using pre-made fresh pasta dough. She’d take a can of Chef Boy R Dee ravioli, season it with a packet, add some liquor, cover it with preshreddded cheese and garnish it with herb-studded Cool Whip!

I never get freebies from Foodbuzz either. It probably doesn’t help that I neglect my account though. I am just too intimidated by the site. I’m not always sure how to use it. Too much stuff. Information overload!!!

Your pasta looks worth the effort though. I do make my own pasta occasionally. I have an Imperia roller/cutter, but I had a disaster with ravioli once and I haven’t attempted them again. For ravioli I wimp out with the wonton wrappers.

For me, the easy party is the filling and I’ve often taken the pre-made pasta wrap shortcut. Looks like your home-made pasta has some ‘bite’ to it. Not wimpy. Love it with the delicious combination of sage and mushrooms.

Hey, Joan. That shortcut totally cool… I recommend it! I’m just not a fan of everyone always using the stuff bought at the store. There is a time and place every once in awhile, but i want people to try to make their own b/c it really is easy!

Looks great. I am impressed by the reasonable price of porcini. And I am glad to see you calling that with the Italian name. Most of the English speakers name them cepes … that I believe comes from French.

Anyway if I can add my two pence suggestion on making your own pasta, which I strongly encourage: it’s quite easy and rewarding. You really do not need a machine to make the dough. It’s probably faster to hand make it. What you may want to consider is using a machine to “flat out” (not sure about the proper verb) the dough. To achieve a really thin texture with a rolling pin could be tricky and time consuming. I make my own pasta often but I do use a machine for the final job.

And now I am a bit sad, after looking at the yummy pictures I can only complain that porcini are still not in season here in Italy. Sigh

That sounds delicious!! You’re right, it is a lot easier than most people think. Last weekend, a friend and I made raviolis and linguine for 10 people in less than an hour and half. And we had leftovers!

You are giving Sandra Lee to much credit with arugula. She is definitely a bagged iceberg lettuce chick with the carrots already chopped in them. My favorite part as where they refer to her as Chef Sandra Lee too. Refresh my memory but I don’t think that girl has ever spent a day in a kitchen.

My xmas present was the pasta maker attachment for the KA and I have been pleasantly surprised how easy it is to make. Although I have not had a good enough success story yet to justify blogging it.

I have not tried the FB mushroom pasta yet but I can bet yours dominates it in every way.

I totally agree about homemade pasta. I often buy fresh and dry pasta though – for convenience. I’ve used wonton wrapper for homemade ravioli, but fresh lasagna pasta sheet cut into squares work great too. I’ve also found colored fresh pasta sheets which look great on the plate.

I love your Sandra Lee bit. I wonder what color scheme she’ll go for with the Kentucky Grilled Chicken tablescape – I’m away from the US so I haven’t seen the commercial…

Trying homemade ravioli again – and I stress again – is on my soon-to-do list. You make it sound so easy! When I did try it, the cheese filling was fab, but the pasta way too thick, so not fun to eat! Your porcini filling sounds divine!

that’s where pasta rollers are SO handy when making stuffed pasta. you get a consistent thickness of your pasta. I usually do mine on “6”or “7” and do a test one to make sure it works well. you don’t want it too thin but you def. don’t want it too thick. 6 or 7 on a kitchen aid pasta roller attachment is usually perfect. give it another try!

also, be careful w/ how much stuffing you put in your pasta. over-stuffed ravioli’s just blow up when cooked!

I am all for making 2 porcini go along away – thats what we do, invest in a beautiful one and then mix it with some decent others. These look top, very impressed with your h/m pasta the filling sounds just delicious.
oh and the sage and butter sauce !!

OK, I have been a little slow in getting around to all my favorite blogs and reading all the posts. And I thought I had hit the wrong button on my computer that took me to Taste With The Eyes, so I actually clicked on your “bring the best out…” link twice. Whaaaa? Oh, that is me! Well, I have to tell you that we really enjoyed that combination of grilled mushroom, sauteed veal, and mushroom agnolotti, and the sauce rocked…sure it would have been even better with fresh pasta! Yours looks awesome. (Thanks for the link you guys!)

Now as for Sandra Lee, first of all I am still laughing, but I also want to say that one of my hobbies is table SETTING and collecting china, glass and silver. Her TableSCAPING gives it a bad name. Oh well, what you gonna do?
LL

I love making fresh pasta! You’re right. I think people are needlessly intimidated. I’ve also used wonton skins when I’m feeling lazy. They are such a great shortcut! OK, it’s been too long since I’ve made ravioli. Thanks for the inspiration!